Unless the Lord builds the house,
    the builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
    the guards stand watch in vain. – Psalm 127

So it’s official. As of Monday afternoon Rebekah and I no longer own the Tyler Run house where we lived for over ten years in Wake Forest! So I completed a change of address form with the Post Office and now I am going through all the places where I need to update our details. We are now absolutely 100% bonafide residents of Tarboro, North Carolina.

And it wasn’t that hard for us to say “goodbye” to our old home. I guess it’s because we’ve been living here in Tarboro for a little more than a year and, rather than move cold turkey, our hearts started to make the transition long before any of the paperwork caught up.

Regardless, the house on Elmwood Court is full with stories and memories, moments both beautiful and difficult:

• Our corner of the cul-de-sac will always be that place where I cared for my parents over the last chapter of their lives. We crafted a well-used pathway between the two homes, lined with azaleas and worn deep with love and tears.
• Elmwood Court was our entry point to North Carolina in 2013, and our home base during the awe-inspiring Wake Forest Presbyterian Church years.
• We hosted David and Beks there (our two oldest grandchildren) numerous times when Naomi’s family lived in Richmond and it became a classic grandparent house in all the best ways.
• Most of all, for Rebekah and me, Elmwood Court was always – like every house – the safe and secure and love-saturated center of our life together. Whatever was going on in the world outside (joy, stress, spectacular success, tension, affirmation, exhaustion, acclaim, heartache and more…) there was always – there is always – our life and our home together.

Friday morning, Rebekah and I visited the house one more time. We went to make sure it is ready for the new family, to pick up the last of our cleaning supplies and also to say our “goodbyes.”

Then we drove to MidTown Law in Rayleigh where we signed our end of the closing papers, followed by lunch with our great friends John and Gayle (John is also our realtor).

I have to give a huge shout-out to John, who has stuck with us through this process as the market shifted and interest rates soared and builders continue to flood the immediate area with cookie-cutter houses that offer the seduction of “newness” but with no trees, no personality, no short walk to downtown, no access to green space, no garage (a lot like opting for a TV dinner and WonderBread over grandmama’s home fried chicken with buttermilk biscuits she rolled out that afternoon).

So it is done, and the next job is to make sure the Saint Patrick Street house is the kind of home we want to invest in. Because we are serious about this community and we want to do it right.

Stay tuned, folks. Wake Forest is now well and truly in the rear-view mirror. We no longer live in “MaulHall East,” we simply live in MaulHall… and with a brand new iteration likely just weeks away!

-DEREK